Читать книгу Joan and Peter - H. G. Wells - Страница 30

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Mummy was rather dull in those days, and Daddy seemed always to be looking at her. Daddy had a sort of inelasticity in his manner too. Suddenly Aunt Phyllis and Aunt Phœbe appeared, and it was announced that Daddy and Mummy were going off to Italy. It was too far for them to take little boys and girls, they said, and besides there were, oh! horrid spiders. And Peter must stay to mind the house and Joan and his aunts; it wasn’t right not to have some man about. He was to have a sailor suit with trousers also, great responsibilities altogether for a boy not much over four. So there was a great kissing and going off, and Joan and Peter settled down to the rule of the aunts and only missed Mummy and Daddy now and then.

Then one day something happened over the children’s heads. Mary had red eyes and wouldn’t say why; the aunts had told her not to do so.

Phyllis and Phœbe decided not to darken the children’s lives by wearing mourning, but Mary said that anyhow she would go into black. But neither Joan nor Peter took much notice of the black dress.

“Why don’t Mummy and Daddy come back?” asked Peter one day of Aunt Phœbe.

“They’ve travelled to such wonderful places,” said Aunt Phœbe with a catch in her voice. “They may not be back for ever so long. No. Not till Peter is ever so big.”

“Then why don’t they send us cull’d poce-cards like they did’t first?” said Peter.

Aunt Phœbe was so taken aback she could answer nothing.

“They just forgotten us,” said Peter and reflected. “They gone on and on.”

“Isn’t Nobby ever coming back either?” he asked, abruptly, displaying a devastating acceptance of the new situation.

“But who’s Nobby?”

“That’s Mr. Oswald Sydenham,” said Mary.

“He’s coming back quite soon,” said Aunt Phœbe. “He’s on his way now.”

“’Cos he promised me a lion skin,” said Peter.